Club set to start £100,000 revamp

A RUGBY club is ready to start spending £100,000 on revamping playing fields in Crow Nest Park.

Dewsbury Celtic RLFC has plans to build a new pitch and a new clubhouse, which will include six changing rooms, at the site where it trains.

The first phase of the work is due to start in August and be completed by November.

The work will mean better access to the rugby pitches and improvements to a wall in the north-east corner of the park.

This first phase will cost £100,000, which was provided by Kirklees Council and Dewsbury’s area committee.

Despite having the cash allocated three years ago, Dewsbury Celtic has been unable to start work on the revamp until now because of uncertainty surrounding other possible grants.

The club was due to get around £250,000 of Westborough High School’s allocation from the government’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project. However, BSF was cancelled last year.

A club spokesman said: “There has been some uncertainty over kick-starting the project because it was thought it might be tied into the BSF programme. That changed with government cuts after the last election, but we’re still on target to make these exciting plans happen.”

The solution to the funding gap was to divide the project into three phases.

The second phase relies on a £150,000 application to Sport England, which will pay for a new rugby pitch for the club’s two open age squads and nine junior and youth squads.

“Once that’s completed, it will allow us to begin phase three in 2012/13, which will see an overhaul of the main playing area and the clubhouse and changing rooms,” the spokesman said.

The club has raised £80,000 itself and secured a £50,000 grant from the Irish government.